A Travel & Culture Blog For People Who Hate Tourists

Month: July 2015

I love coffee. I love wine. I love green tea. Sake? Hmmmm, it’s not my cup of tea. While enjoying these liquids, never have I thought that I want my genitalia, butt crack and anus surrounded in these fluids. Well, I guess the people of Japan are more adventurous than me.

A train ride from Tokyo will take you to Hakone Kowakien Yunessun Resort where, yes, you can bath in red wine, coffee, sake and green tea while sipping red wine, coffee, sake and green tea. The peeing in the pool jokes just write themselves.

When I went to Tokyo, the bath experience was a confusing experience, mainly because of the lack of English and English-speaking staff. With this spa, I’m sure they get questions like, “Is this safe?”, “Can I do multiple soaks?” and “WTF?”

Looking at the video, the beverages just look like colored water. “The sake promises anti-aging benefits,” says the video. Bullshit just called, it says, “bullshit.”

Today’s asshole tourist in the news comes from Zimbabwe, where Dr. Walter J. Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, went to the African nation to go hunting. He ended up killing the country’s beloved lion, Cecil, and is now wanted for poaching charges. Do they make t-shirts for that? “I Went To Zimbabwe To Kill A Lion and All I Got Was This Damn T-Shirt and a Warrant For My Arrest.”

The story is wrong on so many levels, let’s start with the $50,000 price tag. My dentist is damn good and makes a decent living, but I doubt she can drop $50K for any trip. You can do a decent journey to multiple countries and continents and stay in some pretty swanky accommodations for that cash. Dr. Palmer decided to head to Africa and alter the natural landscape.

That’s what asshole tourists do — they go to destinations and impose their will onto them. They don’t go to learn about different cultures, mingle with the locals or broaden their world outlook.

Even if you’re a hunting advocate, you have to admit that luring an animal out of a conservation, tracking it for 40 hours, killing it, decapitating it and then leaving it to rot is a dick move. What are you trying to prove, doc? If your friends are impressed by this, then they aren’t your friends.

“I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt,” Dr. Palmer said to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt.” Might I suggest a refund, douchebag? Or even replacing your rifle with a telescopic photo lens so that others might appreciate the lion?

Now comes the public shaming. As I mentioned before you should read So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson. Jimmy Kimmel took him to task tonight and got emotional. The internet has shut down his dental practice in Bloomington, MN by attacking his public profiles.

To be filed under “long overdue,” LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York will be completely overhauled from piece of shit hell hole to brand spanking new airport utopia. Vice President Joe Biden along with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a $4 billion demolition and overhaul that will modernize the airport.

Let’s start with why LaGuardia is hell on earth. It’s insanity to get to. V.P. Biden called it part of a “third world country”. There’s no rail system in or out of the area, which means you need to get a cab/car/uber in a hugely congested and chaotic area or a crowded bus that’s stuck in the same traffic.

When I had to fly into LaGuardia last summer, it took me an hour to get from the airport to Harlem (6 miles) so I could get a subway back into Manhattan. That bus is the closest I’ll get to those overcrowded buses you see in India where luggage and people are piled high on top of the bus.

A quick read over the world headlines from the past week shows that the U.S. has brokered a nuclear deal with Iran that will last ten years. Since we have a democrat president, the opposition right are spouting outrage and our certain nuclear annihilation from Iran.

Now let’s juxtapose this with our new diplomatic relations with Cuba. Again, President Obama lifts the ban and the opposition spout outrage and certain death from Havana.

This begs the question, have senators and representatives who are against these acts ever been to Tehran or Havana? Clearly, U.S. politicians have connections to get tourist visas easily and can go on fact-finding missions on our tax dollar for themselves.

Americans are flocking to Havana and soon there will be a steady tourist economy for Cuba. Before you know it, they’ll be a Hard Rock Cafe and Hooters in Havana.

But what about Tehran? My thought is that maybe some politicians, and even you and me, can take a trip out there and see what’s it’s like. More importantly, where’s the party at?

There’s a reason why I called this blog Why Am I Not There? 366 tap lines in the same building! Why the eff am I not in Raleigh, NC running around like Homer Simpson in the land of chocolate? I would open my mouth and walk underneath the taps while they are on.

The Raleigh Beer Garden opened this week boasting the largest tap line in the world. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! Your move Germany.

The ground floor features 144 lines from North Carolina brewers while upstairs will be the other 222 taps. If they don’t have the beer you want, it doesn’t exist. You can check their website for updates. God help the person who has to update this.

The complex’s top floor is a cocktail lounge while outside has vast space to enjoy your beverage and pig out on some wings, pizza and burgers.

I pride myself in my knowledge of coffee and the coffee experience. With that said, I hate Starbucks just for the fact that the coffee tastes burnt and their other offerings are just calorie bombs. When I see locations around the world, I shed a tear like an American Indian when he sees litter on the highway.

Now, we have a serious world challenger for Starbucks domination in Caffe Bene. The Korean chain founded in 2008 already has 900 location around the world. There are already 14 states in America with a Caffe Bene. Where I live in NJ, there will be 14 locations. The Korean section of Ft. Lee were one of the first outposts.

The important question is how’s the coffee drinks? Again, I’ve been to Italy multiple times, around Europe where coffee is an art form and paid the equivalent of $9 for a cup of coffee in Tokyo from a $20,000 siphon coffee machine. Caffe Bene’s coffee is … okay. Thankfully, it doesn’t have that acidity aftertaste that Starbucks has, instead it has a creamy quality.

You’ll get a better cup than Starbucks, but go to your pretentious hipster coffee place like Stumptown or Blue Bottle. If you can brave the beardo or the heavily tattooed lady barista, you’ll get something memorable.

You’re going to the store because of the bubble tea. We haven’t fully embraced the paradise known as bubble tea — those tapioca pearls in milk tea you slurp through a thick straw. Not a joke, but it’s suppose to simulate a baby sucking on a mother’s breasts.

I know when I travel, I want to continue doing simple routines I do at home. Dental hygiene shouldn’t be sacrificed just because you’re busy on your journey.

Fresh breath is the finishing touch to your hygiene routines. You’re not being fresh for your traveling mate, new friends or work associates, you’re doing for your confidence and mental welfare. Fresh breathe = fresh mind. The more you know … *shooting star*.

Then there’s the long haul flights. I’m talking the 8+ hours crossing continents. Sure, you can take a few Ambiens, knock yourself and wake-up feeling like a pile used tissues.

I can’t sleep on planes even when I have the first class pods. When I’m feeling a little agitated, I head to the toilet with the amenities kit to brush and a packet of SmartMouth Travel Pack. It’s a powder you add to water or pour directly in your mouth.

The other is the Listerine breath strips, probably the greatest invention to oral hygiene since those red tablets you got in grade school that show if you have plague on your gums. You can shove one in that little fifth pocket on your jeans and be on your way.

Just skip the travel size liquid bottles of mouth wash. They take up to much room and can leak in your dop kit.

I say this knowing the gauntlet you have to go throw during your TSA screening. So far, both these products have been safe, but I anticipate the day where some agent gives me a cavity search for a .5 oz packet. “Sir, what you’re going to do for me is step aside. We found a suspicious powder on you so we’re going to have to drop a digit in your anus.”